Some scenes from the US-Mexico border, where immigration rules are set to change

From El Paso and Ciudad Juárez to San Diego and Tijuana, migrants were massing Thursday along some sections of the U.S.-Mexico border in a last attempt to cross into the United States in the hours before the pandemic-era health rule known as Title 42 ends.

Some migrants who have traveled from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Central American fear that it could be harder for them to stay on U.S. soil once the restrictions are lifted.

Here are some of the scenes playing out along the 1,950 mile international boundary:

“I don’t know what to think now”

María José Durán, a 24-year-old student from Venezuela, was on the verge of tears as she sat on a riverbank in Matamoros, Mexico.

Mexican immigration officials were trying to move migrants to an improvised camp and away from a spot where they could wade across the Rio Grande.

Durán said she dropped out of college when her parents could no longer afford it and set out for the U.S. with a group of friends and relatives. They crossed the treacherous Darien Gap dividing Colombia and Panama and then a half-dozen more countries before arriving at the U.S. border.

“I don’t know what to think now, having made such a difficult journey to now find ourselves with this,” she said, motioning toward the opposite shore where at least a dozen Texas state troopers with rifles stood behind concertina wire.

From the Mexico side, Texas National Guard members could be seen reinforcing a stretch of razor wire to keep migrants out.

Later, Durán could be seen walking along the levee with other migrants who had crossed the Rio Grande and passed the barbed wire.

“And now will it be better or worse for us?”

Hundreds of migrants lined up next to the border wall in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, were still crossing over Thursday morning and being received by the U.S. Border Patrol. The numbers were notably lower than in recent days.

Ecuadorians Washington Javier Vaca and his wife, Paulina Congo, along with their two children, ages 14 and 7, knew nothing about the change in rules.

“And now will it be better or worse for us?” asked Congo. “We asked for asylum in Mexico and after four months they denied us.”

A Salvadoran man who gave his name as David moved away from the border and back into Ciudad Juárez for fear of being deported.

“We are at a situation we've never been at before”

Authorities in the remote desert community of Yuma, Arizona, expressed alarm after the average daily number of migrant arrivals grew this week from 300 to 1,000.

Hundreds who entered the Yuma area by crossing the Colorado River early Thursday surrendered to border agents, who later loaded adults and children onto buses.

Mayor Doug Nicholls asked that the federal government declare a national emergency so that Federal Emergency Management Agency resources and National Guard troops can be rushed to his and other small border communities.

Most migrants are transported to shelters operated by nonprofit organizations farther away from the border, but border officials will release them into communities if enough transportation isn't available. Nicholls said officials have already told him they plan to release 141 processed migrants in Yuma County on Friday.

“The question keeps coming up: ‘What now?’ I've been asking that question for two years, with no answers,” said Nicholls. “We are at a situation we've never been at before.”

"I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie”

Smugglers helped Guatemalan Sheidi Mazariegos and her 4-year-old son get to Matamoros, Mexico, where she and the child crossed the Rio Grande on a raft.

But Border Patrol agents took the pair into custody a week ago near Brownville, Texas. On Thursday, the 26-year-old and her son arrived back in Guatemala on one of two flights carrying a total of 387 migrants.

“I heard on the news that there was an opportunity to enter," said Mazariegos. "I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie.”